What would you say about a completely different learning experience?

Forget about simply memorizing and parroting.

In a world where each of us holds all human knowledge in his hand, what is the point?

Children learn best when they are actively involved in the creation of something personal to them, be it a robot, a painting, or a castle!

The scientific background of this approach goes back many decades, to pioneers such as Jean Piaget, Seymour Papert and Mitchel Resnick.

Let’s take things from the beginning.

More than 60 years ago. The Swiss psychologist Jean Piaget (1896-1980) refuted the hitherto established views of the non-importance of play in the cognitive development of the child.

Instead, he emphasized its role in empirical knowledge acquisition through experience, observation and abstraction.

Meanwhile, South African mathematician Seymour Papert (1928-2016), having studied with Piaget, forms his research team at MIT to devise and study the educational theory of constructionism.

In this context, they invented in 1967 the LOGO programming language and the corresponding programmable robot, with the distinctive turtle as its mascot!

The findings of this research are presented in Papert’s momentous book, <<Mindstorms>> in 1980 and its Greek translation, <<Νοητικές Θύελλες>>, in 1991.

The teacher’s role is to create the conditions for invention rather than provide ready-made knowledge.

Seymour Papert

Nearly two decades later, <<Mindstorms>> the well-known now Lego product line appears, developed at MIT Media Lab by Seymour Papert and his student, Mitchel Resnick.

The American computer scientist Mitchel Resnick (1956- ) and his team at the MIT Media Lab invent the Scratch programming language which, being open source and of great educational value, is brought to schools all over the world.

I believe the rest of school (indeed, the rest of life) should become more like kindergarten.

Mitchel Resnick

In the age of information we live in, therefore, the role of the teacher is no longer the transmission of information.

It is the creation of the most ideal conditions for students to experiment with, and to encourage them to come up with original compositions and inventions.

So come to the world of Makerlab, an innovative place for inspiration and creativity where learning happens by discovery through state-of-the-art technology and methods!

From our first year of operation, the results are impressive!